Posted on 07/10/2006 9:41:05 AM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
The widow of Tom Burnett, who helped lead the passenger revolt on hijacked Flight 93, says in a new book that he had struggled to figure out what he believed was a message from God that might have presaged the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Deena Burnett wrote that a year before the attacks, her husband, who rarely spoke openly about his faith, told her he'd been attending Mass daily to try to understand a message from God that had "something to do with the White House."
He told her he hadn't figured it out, "but I know it will impact a great number of people," she wrote in her book, "Fighting Back: Living Life Beyond Ourselves."
She wrote that she had taken it as a good sign.
"God must have had a good chuckle that day," Burnett wrote, "because my response was, 'He wants you to run for president."'
Tom Burnett died in the crash of the United Airlines flight in rural Pennsylvania. The plane went down 20 minutes short of the hijackers' presumed target, either the U.S. Capitol or the White House.
In her book, Deena Burnett, of Little Rock, Ark., wrote about her four cell phone conversations with her husband during the hijacking, which culminated with her husband's assurance that he was "going to do something" to thwart the hijackers.
She also wrote that when she and other Flight 93 families were invited to the White House two weeks after the attacks, she asked President Bush for access to the plane's cockpit voice recording.
Burnett wrote that Bush replied: "I can see why you would want to. They sure were heroes on that flight."
When she and the rest of the Burnett family got to hear the tape in 2002, they heard intense fighting and the clatter of dishes outside the cockpit. Then they heard an American voice shouting: "In the cockpit. In the cockpit."
It was "clearly, unmistakably" Tom's voice, Burnett wrote.
She also disclosed that she got remarried last month, to Little Rock businessman Rodney Bailey. She said he would have wanted her to remarry so their three girls would have two parents.
She also said she has been approached about running for the U.S. House or for Arkansas lieutenant governor, but that she wasn't likely to attempt any run before her girls are grown.
She attributes her husband's strong character and deep Catholic faith to his upbringing in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, where his father was a high school English and literature teacher and his mother sold real estate.
He was a star quarterback at Jefferson High School, won admission to the Air Force Academy, later transferred to St. John's University in Collegeville, and, after a shoulder injury ended his football career, switched to the University of Minnesota. He attended graduate school at Pepperdine University before going to work for medical technology companies.
"Fighting Back" was co-written by Minneapolis public relations man Anthony Giombetti. It's published by Advantage Books, which specializes in inspirational, faith-based books.
Indeed!. Thank you for the ping.!
Number of U.S. airliners hijacked since the Battle of Flight 93: 0.
'Nuff said.
Thanks for the ping!
5.56mm
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